Car trouble

A friend bought a car, a  1996 Renault megane, The megane has a immobiliser which has to be deactivated for the car to start,even thought you can unlock doors of the car using the key, So while you can get into the thing you still have to press the button on key, To deactiveate the Immobilser… After a few thousand presses the key wasn’t in great shape… But pressing it and hoping for the best sometimes worked (murphy law starts to kick in about now) so it finally died yesterday… When it was needed.. So I did a bit of research and it turns out that if you bring documentation(you own the car etc) + key to your local, in this case Carlow dealer… they will give you a 4 digit number to enter, so the immobiliser is deactivated manually… A new key cost in the region of 150 euro, What a bloody rip off..